I've been trying to get Grub2 to work for over a week and I'm just about to say the hell with it. They made it too damn complicated instead of being simple so anyone could configure and use it. So, I'm hereby masking it.

Yep, major PITA, I spent a few days with the 1.99 a few months ago, never worked as I hoped(Macbook+EFI). Stumbled over rEFInd one day, saw that the kernel can be built as EFI-Image (efi_stub), took me <=5mins to get it working and about 1-2h to setup the look how I like it.

Running for a few months now, never been easier for me - only need dual-boot OSX/Gentoo and that's almost automaticly done._________________++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

They made it too damn complicated instead of being simple so anyone could configure and use it.

If you run grub2-mkconfig only once to get a decent example and from then on maintain your grub.cfg manually, you can use it like grub-legacy: The main difference is that now you have more possibilities in your grub.cfg (which you can use or omit, as you prefer). Personally, I like the possibilities to have submenus or to set variables and to use them (so that e.g. you can combine initial resolution, kernel parameters, and kernel selection conveniently during booting without having a separate menu entry for every possible combination) and that it has become cleaner e.g. to boot a special menu entry exactly once. I also like the possibility to seek UUIDs so that adding another harddisk or switching two harddisks can work in many situations without modifying grub.cfg

I've been trying to get Grub2 to work for over a week and I'm just about to say the hell with it. They made it too damn complicated instead of being simple so anyone could configure and use it. So, I'm hereby masking it.

Anyone else feel the same?

sys-boot/grub:0 will be maintained indefinitely provided no obscenely difficult to fix bugs like the GCC 4.6 infinite reboot occur again.

i configured grub once, and make install in the kernel source takes care of the links and old kernel and all and i don't ever have to worry about it and still can revert to my old kernel if somethings wrong without having to touch grub.conf_________________A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

I found it significantly more complex to configure GRUB in Gentoo a while ago, however I nuked my Gentoo installation by doing something stupid (changing profiles while not entirely knowing what I'm doing, and trying to set up Hardened... anyway it ended up with an installation that wouldn't begin to boot).

Anyhow...

After that, I paid extra careful attention to the GRUB2 instructions in the Gentoo wiki (earlier, I mostly went on prior knowledge from other distros), and everything seemed to work perfectly. I am installing in a UEFI environment.

Essentially, I followed the handbook to get to the point where everything is configured.

Then for bootloader, I exited the chroot, modprobed efivars, chrooted back in, and unmounted/remounted /boot and /boot/efi

After that, I ran grub2-install and grub2-mkconfig (I wasn't sure exactly where GRUB2 pulled the config from... it wasn't the same place as before, so I threw it in a few locations, and it's working from one of them now. I'll have to do process of elimination and figure out which one to remove now, however, it works great in the meantime, so I'm thinking that I'm finally catching up to the state of things these days.

I'd say don't give up, because as always once you get GRUB set up, it's basically good to go, indefinitely.

With EFI becoming very common these days (and it'll soon be all there is in the PC market, I'm sure), it'll be a good thing to know._________________Thinkpad X220

I've been trying to get Grub2 to work for over a week and I'm just about to say the hell with it. They made it too damn complicated instead of being simple so anyone could configure and use it. So, I'm hereby masking it.

Anyone else feel the same?

I followed the grub2 guide and had no issues at all._________________Who controls the past now, controls the future
Who controls the present now, controls the past.

sys-boot/grub:0 will be maintained indefinitely provided no obscenely difficult to fix bugs like the GCC 4.6 infinite reboot occur again.

I am really glad to hear this. Many thanks to the developers who are doing this.

I have several different different OS's (mostly Linux) with different root and boot partitions
for each. Moreover each Linux OS has its own choice of different kernels.
When I compile a kernel I use my own script to do exactly what I want, eventually linking
the kernel to a standard name such as "vmlinuz", "vmlinuz-old"
or
"vmlinuz-hardened."

I have found this really easy to set up with grub:0 . Grub2 Always seemed to be fighting what I really wanted to do, when I tried it.

What I like best about grub:0 (as opposed to lilo) is that, using it the way that I do, it never has to be reconfigured or rerun. My next favourite feature is that it has an interactive
mode, which is quite handy in case something goes wrong.

I have several different different OS's (mostly Linux) with different root and boot partitions
for each. Moreover each Linux OS has its own choice of different kernels.
When I compile a kernel I use my own script to do exactly what I want, eventually linking
the kernel to a standard name such as "vmlinuz", "vmlinuz-old"
or
"vmlinuz-hardened."

I have a rather similar setup. It is as simple to setup with grub2 as it is with grub-legacy. More or less, you only need a slightly different syntax in grub.cfg than in grub.conf if you do not want to use any of the new features. The main difference is that partitions in grub2 are counted as in linux and not as in grub-legacy (i.e. starting from 1, not from 0). However, as mentioned in my post, there are some additional features which you perhaps might want to use (like selecting the partition by uuid); if you run grub2-mkconfig you get a sample grub.cfg which already uses some of the new features.
As also mentioned in my post, I would not recomend to run grub2-mkconfig more than once: It is much easier (especially if you are used to legacy-grub) to write a decent grub.cfg manually, and as for grub-legacy, it is not necessary to regenerate it ever.

Quote:

interactive mode, which is quite handy in case something goes wrong.

grub2 has an analogous interactive mode which actually has become much more convenient (concerning e.g. completion with TAB and help). It has also become more convenient to edit your grub.cfg entry before booting.

I have a rather similar setup. It is as simple to setup with grub2 as it is with grub-legacy.

Thank you so much for the 'heads up' on this.

It only took me a few minutes to switch to a grub2 that works just like my old grub-legacy
using your suggestion that it was possible and http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2_Quick_Start
(in particular the part labelled "manual configuration.")

At my convenience, I may experiment with some of the more advanced features of grub2,
when and if I feel that I need them.

I had masked grub2 a few weeks ago because of the same issues described here (i.e. it seemed orders of magnitude more complicated to configure, with all the different files and commands), and I was fully prepared to join this thread and rant. Seeing the suggestions here for creating a manual config, I may give it another shot. Like others, I tend to keep more than one menu entry for the same kernel image, with different command line arguments, and I didn't see any clear way of doing this. I don't have other operating systems, so the options it provides for that are fairly useless for me.

Anyway, I'll see what I can come up with a good manual config, and maybe I will have better luck that way._________________Help the Unanswered